


Promise Me a Place

by UisceOneLove



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Charles Xavier Can Walk, Confused Erik, Dedicated Charles, Erik stays, Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, No Divorce in Cuba, Post-Cuba (X-Men), Smitten Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29208606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UisceOneLove/pseuds/UisceOneLove
Summary: The fight in Cuba ends differently, with Moira's bullet hitting the intended target.or, Charles tends to a lost Erik and all Erik knows is that he really wants to stay with a pretty-eyed telepath for the rest of his days.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39
Collections: X-Men X-Traordinaire's Cherik Valentine's Day Exchange





	Promise Me a Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midrashic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midrashic/gifts).



> Prompt: amnesiac!Erik
> 
> I had a few ideas of what I wanted from this. This is the direction I decided to go with and hope it suffices.

There were round puckered scars on Erik's temples that he didn't remember getting. The most that he could get was a flash of a sandy beach, the phantom pain of something touching that spot, and the screech of metal being crushed in the distance. 

"How are you feeling, Erik?"

Azure eyes met his.

He could float in that sea of serenity.

"Erik?"

He blinked and came back to the trees that rustled around them. They walked the path around the front of the school twice a day. Erik found it peaceful in a way he felt like he never truly knew before. Like for once, he wasn't angry, or afraid, or preparing to flee. 

"I feel content," Erik murmured, earning a gentle curve of naturally rouge lips.

"We can go back inside, my friend, if the breeze is too cold." 

"No. It's inviting. Just right."

"A few more minutes then."

Erik could feel Charles' eyes still on him as they made another trip around. Always watching. It was a tender connection that he was afraid to break if he attached himself to it for too long. One of the others in the home must need the man's attention more than he, yet the thought of Charles leaving him was also weight in his chest too heavy to bear.

_ You're not alone, my friend.  _ The words floated inside of him, familiar but just out of reach. They'd been assuring, once. That much Erik could recall. 

The mutant's feet slowed to a stop, Charles slowing beside him. The man was good at being patient with Erik, never bothered by his lapses or the questions he'd ask. Erik admired him for it. "Forgive me," Erik grimaced, "I fear I cannot recall anything today." 

"That is all right, Erik," Charles assured him with a kind touch of his shoulder, "these things take time. Your injury was serious, I do not consider your loss with a light hand." 

"We've been at this for over a month, surely something would return by now."

"One can never know how long the mind requires healing. Some things may never return at all. We will take it in stride and handle the outcome with whatever solution becomes necessary."

A part of Erik was sated by the idea of Charles sticking by his side for such a long possible road. But another could not imagine being so selfish. "What of the others?" he had to ask. "They must require your assistance as well."

"They all wish for you to recover as I do," Charles replied. "They understand, and know how to handle themselves as adults until then." 

Charles' expression went distant for a moment as if another person was speaking to him. Erik found himself awed by the telepathy, while he wondered just how isolating it was to be surrounded by everyone else's thoughts. How consuming it must be to shut the voices out or brush against them. 

When the youthful face cleared, it wasn't the easy demeanor from before. There was a tightness to his smile and around his eyes. "There appears to be an emergency in the kitchen I must help with," he told Erik apologetically.

Erik shook his head and stepped away. "Tend to it. I can walk on my own."

"Are you sure?" Charles checked.

"Charles, go."

"It won't be long, I promise you." 

Erik's chest tightened but he believed the telepath. Charles had a knack for only divulging the truth. At least, it felt that way for him. The mutant had to take stock in the fact that Charles was reluctant to leave him, so perhaps it was a shared feeling of wanting to orbit around one another.

He let Charles go, the smaller man brisk in his steps back to the manor. He's watched the man walk away before, it felt like. When there was an important decision to make.

_ What do you know about me? _

_ Everything. _

...or had  _ he  _ been the one who walked away?

_ Erik! You stayed. _

The snippets that Erik's mind would conjure never made much sense to him. There was no context there to fill in the blanks between them. Sometimes he would ask Charles to help fill them in but the man didn't want to risk too much of it. 

Another lap was done, slower than the others when Erik decided he was finished for the morning. Charles still hadn't returned from the emergency so he went ahead and took the steps up to go inside. He could find something to do with himself until the next time he sees Charles.

Erik tried his best to close the door quietly behind him, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He could see the redhead, Sean, goofing around with Alex and Raven in the living room, each face blooming bright with smiles as their laughter carried over. He didn't see it that often and didn't want to disturb the moment. He was good at that without knowing why.

It was as he got closer to the staircase that Erik picked up on hushed voices from the direction of the kitchen. 

"This is dangerous, Charles. We almost lost everything in Cuba."

"But we didn't, Hank. We knew the risks. The family is still together, united. It's going to stay that way."

Erik hesitated, his hand stretched out towards the railing. Charles often respected his privacy and he should respond in kind. It would not be a bother to continue on his way up to the bedroom and leave it alone.

But.

"Things could have gone a lot differently if you hadn't gotten the helmet off of him."

"I would rather not discuss the possibilities of who Moira would have shot if any factor was a different one. I knew the pain and anger he had, I'm the one who underestimated how he would react when Shaw was right there in front of him." 

Erik's hand gripped the railing.

The careening of missiles in the air. Cries of fear and protest behind him. The mental nudge of metal pointed at him from the side by an ally instead of the threat.

_ Erik, stop! They are good men. They are just following orders. _

_ I have been at the mercy of men who followed orders. Not again. _

His watch vibrated against his wrist, a minor reminder of what he can do. Erik couldn't help himself. He moved away from the stairs and closer to the kitchen. 

"We don't know how Magneto is going to react if his memories return," Hank's insistent voice carried out regardless of the hushed level.

"Whether they do or not, Erik is still our family," Charles replied, immovable in the fact. "He and I brought this team in  _ together _ , and I will not lose him. I will not give up on him. Erik belongs here like the rest of us."

Erik couldn't look away from Charles's back as the two men were hunched over the counter. What did Erik do that caused such devotion and such caution? 

Charles had mentioned Cuba only once; when Erik first woke up in a bed upstairs with a bandaged head and weary eyes all around him. Charles had told him not to fret over it. That it had all been a misunderstanding and all was forgiven. He said that they'd done a great service to the world and Erik had been a large part of it. 

"We all want to believe that Erik will be a team player and stay," Hank said, backtracking. "But we know you love him, and we don't want you to get hurt if it doesn't work out that way."

Love? Charles loved him?

There was an overwhelming pressure in his head, cutting off everything else in its way. 

Erik saw meaningful looks, heads bowed over chess boards or dinner, someone else in his head trusted enough to be there and see what vulnerabilities he'd spent a life bottling up. Hands on bare skin in the privacy of a bedroom, fervent kisses when no one's looking, bright smiles and stolen contact that had others teasingly referring to them as Mom & Dad. 

All of it was a kaleidoscope of pictures that kept crossing and swirling together until it was a jumbled mess that left him spinning.

_ I love you, Charles, but will you be able to let me do what needs to be done when the time comes? _

"Erik?" 

A wide-eyed Raven tugged his hand from his temple. Alex and Sean stood a distance behind them with nervous glances around the hall. Hank was eyeing the metal utensils floating around their heads while Charles was focused solely on Erik. 

It took Erik longer than might have been liked to be conscious of all the metal surrounding them floating or shaking. He slowly brought the shaking to a stop, then lowered the utensils and objects until they were neatly replaced against a surface.

"You all right, Erik?" Alex asked slowly. Erik could hear him shifting, and he couldn't blame the boy for preparing for the worst. 

"Yeah," Sean added, rocking on the balls of his feet (that's what it sounded like, at least), "should we all go outside and take a few breaths of that clean air everyone's so fascinated by?"

Charles was unmoving from his spot, looking all the while as if he were a guilty child caught in the act. Erik didn't like that look on Charles. It was out of place. 

_ I'm sorry, Erik. I felt your agony. _

_ I can help you. _

The words echoed, as if they were being spoken to him at this moment and not just from an unknown past. Charles' lips hadn't moved but that wasn't where Erik was being spoken to. Charles' presence in his mind was like being wrapped in down feathers, soft and comforting and Erik  _ knew _ with certainty that it was the only presence he would ever allow there. 

"Erik," Raven repeated, her voice softer, "are you all right?" 

Erik turned away from the telepath to look at her, yellow eyes regarding him with the tentative care of a sister. 

"I am fine," he told her, and the rest of them. He slipped his hand out of hers and took a step back to where he'd originally been going. "I apologize for the abrupt show. I'm going to take a shower. Excuse me." 

Charles made an aborted step, finally breaking free of whatever held him. "Erik, hold on."

But Erik took his exit, long legs striding up the stairs two at a time until he reached the landing. Charles' mental presence was gone, leaving him alone like he was after. Erik didn't allow himself to think until he was secure in his room. He shed his clothes quickly as he went into the adjacent bathroom, his connection reaching out to the metal faucets of the shower and rotating them for the sturdy outpour of water. 

Once he was under the spray and able to feel well and truly isolated, Erik reflected. That's what showers were for, at least what many believed. What they'd been waiting for was starting to happen, that Erik was certain of. 

A wall was coming down, brick by brick, with memories slipping out when they could. Glimpses of a world that Erik didn't know how to interact with anymore. 

How long until the wall was completely gone?

And was Erik going to like what's on the other side?

He took his time with the shower. He wished that the new stormy thoughts and the memories that came with them could be washed down the drain along with the soap. Erik shut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist, unbothered by the droplets coming down from his hair. 

Somehow, Erik wasn't surprised by walking out of the bathroom and finding Charles waiting on the edge of his bed. The telepath's legs were folded over each other, hands clasped around a knee as he kept his line of vision elsewhere. A small sense of modesty for the other mutant.

Erik didn't shy away though. He went about the business of getting fresh clothes from the dresser and left the towel discarded on a nearby chair. 

"I don't know how much of mine and Hank's conversation you heard, but I am sorry." Charles did sound like it but Erik didn't know why he would. 

"You said that learning about my past would take time," Erik responded, sliding a plain shirt over his head and down his body. "I did not presume for that to mean you couldn't talk about it amongst yourselves, Charles." 

"That was still not the way I wanted you to learn any of it," he said earnestly.

Erik splayed his hand along the mahogany wood of the dresser, watching the way the light refracted against the old window. "I think the time is coming that I am going to remember it," he told the telepath carefully, chewing over the words before laying them out to pasture. 

"Oh?" Charles didn't sound entirely relieved by it. Erik thought back to the words he'd made the mistake of listening to uninvited. 

"I did something in Cuba." Erik came around the bed to have a seat, keeping a considerate enough distance from Charles. The brunet was guarded now and at Erik's fault but he did not need to be.

"Do you remember?"

"Not completely. I don't think I would want to if I had the choice."

Charles smiled flimsily for a short moment before it went away. "You don't have to. I could help you with that."

"Currently, the offer is tempting." Erik returned the smile. "But I betrayed you. We seemed to have different goals there and I let it get in the way of what you wanted us to build together. I should live with the punishment of doing so, shouldn't I?"

Charles brushed his fingers over a puckered temple, eyes turning to stunning blue puddles as they began to carry water. "No, my love," he answered, "I do not seek for you to be punished for that mistake. I knew what you were feeling and I let you go when it should have been anyone else. I put you in a position to choose between your life-long agony and a peace that only recently bloomed. We all made difficult choices." 

Erik took the supple hand in his calloused one, thumb tracing over the lines of his palm. Such a long and beautiful lifeline. He would do anything to prevent it from being cut short.

"Do you wish me to stay here?" he asked. "With you? With the family you have built?"

" _ We _ built, Erik," Charles corrected, "and yes, I do wish it. There are many of us out there that we can help. Together. This can be their safe place to be amongst one another and learn to be who they are. We can teach them." 

Erik leaned in, taking something that had been held off for long enough. Kissing Charles was like drinking a soothing cup of jasmine tea. He wanted to have more of it, and with how much enthusiasm the telepath carried over with his own lips, Erik believed that would be a distinct possibility.

Whatever differences almost tore them apart before, they can work it out now. They will find a better way. 

"Yes, Charles. We  _ will _ teach them."


End file.
